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My Ego 



I ®^' I 

I THE REV. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D. D. | 

1 1 

i Author of | 

g f 

I Where Is My Dog; or. Is Man Alone Immortal? The | 

I Racing Parson; or. How Baldy Won the County | 

I Seat, Robert G. Ingersoll, et al, and the | 

I Clerical Attire, Etc., Reprieve and | 

I Other Poems, Hope Undeferred, | 

I Awakenings, In Athens, This i 

I and That and That and I 

I This, Etc., Etc. I 



Copyright, 1920, by Charles Josiah Adams 



s i 

3 ; 

3 I 

3 I 

I NEW YORK: ! 

I J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY j 

I 57 Rose Street i 

I i 

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My Ego 



I BY 

I THE REV. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D. D. 

i Author of 



I Where Is My Dog; or. Is Man Alone Immortalf The | 

I Racing Parson; or. How Baldy Won the County | 

j Seat, Robert G. Ingersoll, ct ah, and the | 

I Clerical Attire, Etc., Reprieve and I 

I Other Poems, Hope Undeferred, | 

j Awakenings, In Athens, This i 

I and That and That and | 

I This, Etc., Etc. I 



Copyright, 1920, by Charles Josiah Adams 



I NEW YORK: 

I J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

I 57 Rose Street 



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PREFACE 

An acquaintance said to me: '^Your This and That 
and That and This is a great credit to you! — I waited. 
—He added : ' ' But you left something out ! "— " What V 
I asked. — ''The relations between the sexes!'' he an- 
swered. — I told him that that came of my intending 
to sing again on the general theme of Correlation, and 
told a story. Some one quoted to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
from a current writer, something to the effect, that man 
is twice in the hands of woman — in his infancy and in 
his old age. ''Huh!" Holmes commented, "I said that 
half a century ago!" — But the statement does not go 
far enough. In the cradle, and between it and the grave, 
man is in the hands of woman much oftener than twice. 
— Thrice? — It is surprising how nearly constantly. 
There is no correlation more striking than that of man 
and woman. They fit each other as do the right and 
the left hands. 

The proposed singing I have done in My Ego — which 
I now offer — hoping for a continuation of criticism — 
favorable or unfavorable — the latter much preferred to 
none. It shows that attention has been given to things, 
which, wisely or unwisely, I have been trying, for dec- 
ades, to get to as many minds as possible. Not the ad- 
verse critic 's, of course. He has weighed them. But his 
strictures draw attention. 

Were I not appreciative of the woman's guardianship, 
I would be coming shorter of the ideal man than I do. 
But have I no other guardians? There is the dog. And 
is a guardian-angel an impossibility? Then, my ego! 
May it not be a guardian? I am as aware of it as I am 
of the woman — as mother, wife, or nurse — or of the dog. 

Is my ego myself? How can it be? It is myself who 
is aware of my ego. What is myself? I, myself, am as 
much a mystery to myself as is my ego, a flower, or any 
other phenomenon or noumenon — not one of which is 



4 MY EGO 

knowable, essentially. The evidence of myself, as exist- 
ing as an entity, is cumulative, as truly as it is of any 
other thing, objective or subjective. An old professor 
once said to his class : ' ' Young gentlemen, no one knows 
anything till he knows that he knows it!" He might 
have gone on, speaking of the possibility of one's know- 
ing that one knows a thing, knowing that he knows, 
knowing that he knows that he knows, knowing that he 
knows that he knows that he knows, and so on, ad in- 
finitum. No one can fail to see that this is true of one's 
knowing anything, such as the key of one's typewriter, 
or of any fact, such as that a straight line is the shortest 
distance between two points. And, of course, this is just 
as true of knowledge of self as of knowledge of any 
other thing or fact. Does this mean that in so knowing 
himself one is lost in Infinitude? No more than in his 
so knowing any other thing. Not so much. For one 
knows himself as conscious and self-conscious — which 
one can not know of any other thing or fact — which one 
can not more than conclude concerning any other per- 
son. Must it not be that one knows himself as ''living 
and moving and having his being in ' ' Infinitude ? That 
one is continuing in that state? How long? Eter- 
nally? Must that not be the inference? 

''Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!" In so 
praying, I should do what I can to help myself, and get 
what other help I can elsewhere — not forgetting that be- 
lief is a different thing from faith — belief being a state 
of mind, while faith is a power of the mind — as any one 
of the senses is a power of the body. Belief comes from 
evidence. The producer of belief from evidence is rea- 
son. One knows a thing objective through its presenta- 
tion to a sense — a thing subjective, through its presen- 
tation to a power, or faculty. The highest of one's fac- 
ulties is faith. 

But should reason be decried? The faith of the aver- 
age person is not strong. The near-sighted man needs 
some one to lead, or direct, him to where the picture is 
within the range of his vision. So the one of weak faith 
needs reason to bring him to where he can see the Super- 



PREFACE 5 

nal. I felt complimented when one of my critics spoke 
of me as a poet of the reason. I love to poetize my 
philosophizing. It is to me the opening of least resist- 
ance to expression. And is it not through such an open- 
ing that one does his best work, and so the most good? 

Charles Josiah Adams. 
Rossville, Staten Island, N. Y. 
May 30, 1919. 



MY EGO 



MY EGO 

A transient, for a little space, in time, 
Among my needings is a needing prime: 
Some one to guard me; to the danger state, 
Coming or present; to illuminate; 
No wasting of the present to allow — 
Kecallin g that the future has but now ! 

In infancy, the mother's anxious care 

Was with me, waking, sleeping, everywhere; 

And, later, when I fainted by the way. 

The white-capped nurse's watchfulness in play; 

And when I reach my second-childhood, then 

I '11 be in woman 's tender hands again — 

The sexes by a cleavage set apart; 

Man more the physical, the woman, heart; 

Much oftener than the apparent thrice 

Which here I sing, he needs her sacrifice,* 

If such it be, which she's disposed to yield — 

As shown in hospital, on battlefield. 

No more than at the crib, in room of pain. 

In endless household duties, moil and strain — 

Her love surpassing all, save that which feels 

The dog, self -lost, which follows at my heels, 

Or, when my daily work, or follies, o'er. 

Lies at the inner, or the outer, door 

Of where I dwell, if palace, or if but 

A rectory, or rain-admitting hut — 

The human's friend, when first the species met. 

And, spite of human frailties, friendly yet! — 

* See Preface. 



8 MY EGO 

Friendly? — The master's one and only friend, 

Who, loving once, is loving to the end — 

No matter what the intervenings be: 

Honors, disgraces, riches, poverty! — 

And may an angel, spirit-bodied, keep 

A vigil o'er me, while I wake or sleep? 

One claims, his angel he has plainly seen, 

And oft, in the penumbra that's between 

The waking-sleeping, sleeping-waking, and, 

A once — he wounded — reach a warding hand — 

He swooning — that a bayoneting Hun 

Might not complete what shrapnel had begun — 

Claimings in which there is no show of feint. 

Coming from that fine thing — the soldier saint! — 

Not the conventional ! — You doubt his word ? — 

Beware ! — For wide the circle of his sword ! — 

Why were the balls allowed to hurt him so? — 

He frankly answers that he does n6t know, 

Though thinking, from the right he may have swerved, 

And, so, the bitter punishment deserved. 

That he's mistaken is not under ban; 

But he's a saint, and, so, an honest man! 

Why not his visions? He's to be apprized 

As one of those who 're not to be ''despised," 

Because ''their angels" are in special grace, 

In that they "e'er behold my Father's face!" 

Quoting the One Who, lonely, bowed His head — 

To raise it — ^by an angel ' ' comforted. " * 

Were I, as soldier mentioned, brave and true, 

As his, might not my angel serve me, too? 

If more simplicity by me retained, 

Would more of my connections have remained? 

The cry from Macedonia was sent : 

"Come o'er and help us!" The apostle — went! 

Responding to a sense, which me has cost 

Advance, the savage. hunter ne'er is lost! 

Is it but fancy that the infant's smile 

Is from its angel being there the while ? 

Is it a fiction of beginnings dim, 

"An hungered, angels ministered to Him?" 



MY EGO 

Would mine appear to me, and nothing loath, 
Were I but, still, **a child of larger growth? '* 

Though, years ago^ the mother passed before — 

In nature's order — through the Common Door; 

Though I may be sufficiently in health 

For needing not the nurse's moral wealth; 

My second childhood yet not here, that mine, 

Once more, may be the woman 's care divine ; 

Though I may not the ether cloudless keep, 

Through which, to one, the angel-pinions sweep — 

Yet there is proof that in the deeper Thought 

Of my Creator I was not forgot — 

That there was ordered, in His Mystic Plan, 

That there be born with me a guardian — 

A thing existing through the eons past. 

And through the endless coming ones to last! — 

More than the hardest king the dead past saw. 

Who said of government: ^'L^etat, C'est Moi!'* — 

More than Saint Paul, who promptly could reply, 

In all comparisons: ''And so am I!" 

With emphasis repeated, o'er and o'er, 

To, adding, with the proving: ''I am morel'^ — 

More than another of the teeming host. 

Who consciousness, self-consciousness may boast. 

Without distinguishing as great or small — 

Does God ? — within the Universal All ; 

Claimed He, of crown-of -thorns, of cross, of palm — 

The Christ: **Ere Abraham appeared, I am!'' — 

From the Eternities, a while in time 1 — 

Of all the lives yet known, the most sublime ! 

May I not, too, an ego have, as well, 
With each of all of those who with me dwell, 
Together jumbled, in this crazy world. 
Where, somehow, we have been together hurled, 
In Wisdom, for a purpose that's revealed, 
I keeping, foolishly, my vision sealed? — 
Does not a Personal Infinitude 
Involve Infinitude of Multitude, 



10 MY EGO 

As hath the thumb the fingers in demand, 

That I may have, me serving, either hand. 

As each of them the other hath that they as two 

May carry on the larger work to do, 

And they my many members, that may be, 

Upon my part but slight efficiency? — 

Employing the infinitesimal 

To Correlation hint — ^which governs all. 

My ego ? — More than germ, it is to hold, 

From which I, as a person, sprang, unfold; 

More than the Sketch of my Intender, Who 

It gave to agents to be carried through. 

As earthly architects their plans confide 

To specialists, minutely qualified; 

More than the something which together keeps 

My parts, till waiting Death upon me leaps — 

My ego ? — which is separate from me ! — 

Else could I subject of its thinking be? — 

As I as surely am, as anything 

To me, to which I my attention bring. 

Or yield, as pen, which, sputtering, the page 

Befouls, or neighbor, in a mounting rage. 

The chickens in his garden, or the bird, 

Singing, this April morning, love-bestirred — 

Or it of mine? — as it has been, since when 

Began this song, is now, will be, till then 

That I have finished it — as truly so, 

As, passingly, the pen which would not go 

To liking, or the neighbor so absurd. 

Or the delightfully overmastered bird — 

Better than stating in formality 

My notion of my strange duality! 

"When I'm wool-gathering, my ego smiles, 
Secretively, and, thus, my mind beguiles 
From ''planting in the moon potatoes,'* to 
The nearer planting, which is mine to do. 
And cultivating, that may be of worth 
"What I produce, conjointly with the earth — 



MY EGO 11 

To see that castle-building, not in Spain, 
But on the hither-shore, is worth the pain — 
That while imagination paints the end, 
To reach it, I must to the now attend: 
The structure, to the architect so quick, 
Is by the mason builded, brick by brick ; 
The picture, which upon the painter broke, 
A flash, comes on the canvas stroke by stroke; 
The statue, leaping to the sculptor's thought. 
Is by the chisel from the marble wrought; 
The poet, whatsoe'er the muse may bring. 
Must in the travail of the spirit sing! 

The same as I my ego? If that be. 
What more than, for a time, mortality 
Is sleep — the natural, or the induced 
Hypnotically, or howe'er produced. 
That I may rest, or that I may not feel 
The penetrating-cutting of the steel — 
Mortality, which is eternal, when 
I, in the body, waking not again? 

I, waking, then my ego prods my will, 

To cause my other powers to fulfil 

Their functions — that my eyes may be abont; 

My ears atune to all of the Without ; 

That quick may be my feet to stand or run ; 

My hands alive to do the thing begun ; 

Attention prompt ; my mem'ry strong to hold 

That which I Ve lived, or thought, or have been told ; 

My reason, solving practicalities; 

Imagination working on from these; 

With fancy adding, now and then, a touch, 

Kestrained from marring by an overmuch 

Of ornament the dignity, the pose, 

Which with the worthy and the lasting goes, 

In work with chisel, trowel, brush, or pen, 

Or helping otherwise one's fellow men: 

My ego, then, as driver of a team, 

Upon the box, the lines in hands astream; 



12 MY EGO 

Or captain of the ship, on bridge in view, 
Someway connected with the subject crew; 
Or leader of a company, who knows 
The men he holds, or into action throws. 
When I am indolent, my ego shames 
Me, frowningly, and pitilessly blames, 
Till, in my irritation, I assume 
My implements, and waiting task resume. 

My ego, further, in my waking, may 

Warn me of dangers which are on the way 

To me, or which, as beasts-of-prey, await, 

I forward stumbling, to whatever fate. 

Along the path, from which the mists arise, 

A little only, that my purblind eyes 

May have a hint of where my foot falls next — 

However brave my heart, my mind perplexed — 

However I may have abiding trust. 

That He Who made me must, at least, be just — 

That somewhere, somehow, whatsoe're my plight 

At present, there must be for me the light 

Effulgent of an unimagined zone. 

Though promised, where ''I'll know as I am known !' 

Prepared for months of travel in the lands 

Where history the interest expands, 

Intensifies, provision I had made 

Of where-with-all, that might be largely paid, 

Not only for the necessary things. 

But for each one which passing pleasure brings, 

Feeling I'd rather vegetate than be 

On constant guard 'gainst prodigality^- 

In hoping that my sailing be not balk^, 

I read of what I'd see, the streets I walked, 

Incessantly, or other measures took. 

Which something of impatience from me shook. 

Upon the street to me an order terse 

Was given : ' ' Put more money in your purse ! " 

I started, turned, regarded all about. 

Then realized 'twas not from the without 



MY EGO 13 

The order came. But it had come! It stayed, 

Insistant, in my memory. Obeyed? 

That I be not, by e'en myself, apprized 

As superstitious, thus I compromised: 

''In secret pocket of my purse I'll pack 

"Some gold-certificates — to bring them back — 

''Unused!" . . . Well, I was deep in Germany 

When came the War-of-wars — the World- C alamity ! 

My coupons, tickets, cheques — though certified — 

In krieges zustand^ with suspicion eyed! 

Which made me wonder how I could endure 

Environment so trying, and so sure 

To danger bring, to all — the very best — 

Including riot, mobbing and arrest — 

The strain of each of which I came to bear — 

Had, then, my yellow-beauties been elsewhere? — 

Or how could I have reached the Netherlands? — 

Or come to where the Stately Goddess stands, 

Eeaching ahigh her torch of Liberty, 

Incitingly, to all who would be free? — 

* ' The order but a fancy ! ' ' may be said — 

"A troubled fancy of an addled head!'' 

However addled, I was only, then, 

Impatient for the *tarding moment, when 

My ship should go — no trouble even there 

For me — not subject to the mal de mer! — 

"The order from an angel!" may be sneered, 

As now-a-days supernal things are jeered. 

But only to a saint is e'er the grant 

Of blessedness of such a visitant! — 

"A joke!" To such a theory a rub: 

The fools were all assembled at the club ! 

And not a one of them had come to know 

To where, or when, my purpose was to go! 

If, thus, my ego thinks ahead for me, 

May it not for my present caring be? — 

At matins, once, the church was dark, indeed, 

From stained-glass windows — ^which the light impede. 



14 MY aGO 

That sacred Mystery may reign, the while 

The organ and the anthem souls beguile 

From earthly things, that they be brought atune, 

From reason's foolish questionings immune, 

In faith and hope and charity to pray, 

To hear what from the chancel is to say — 

And from the state of weather then to fore: 

Misty the air, the heavens clouded o'er. — 

The time arriving for pre-sermon hjonn, 

I saw the light to be so very dim 

That there might be a woeful happening: 

The congregation seeing not to sing, 

The choir alone would vocalize our thanks 

And praise — temptation strong to vocal pranks ! 

And, so, I waved my hand. — A mellow glow — 

A button touched — about, above, below. — 

And, from the multitude, a lovely face 

Was raised to me, in my official place, 

Surprised, and with a thankfulness abeam — 

As charming as a sainted artist's dream. 

So may it be, in twilight of the mind, 

Ego the light-effecting switch may find, 

I waking, or in darkness dense and deep — 

If waking other is — when I'm asleep. 

It may be thus the Magdalene knew 

The Christ, when Jesus to her village drew ; 

Or Newton gravitation — who can tell? — 

When, near him, to the ground the apple fell; 

Or Galileo, of the double fame, 

Our universe in motion, *'all the same, 

Though, when he saw what was to be endured, 

The theory he — sensibly? — abjured. 

A journalist asserts he need not count 

The words or lines, to know that the amount 

He writes for the edition to be run 

Is written — simply knows when it is done. 

I once was asked how, lecturing, I knew. 

My time was up, and to conclusion drew. 

My watch unseen. I said : * ' Subconsciousness ! ' '- 

An insufficient answer, I confess; 



If 



MY EGO 15 

For it may be no more than avenue 

Through which the ego comes its work to do. — 

Then when I, sleeping, need a potion take, 

Or fevered patient's thirst there is to slake, 

Or it appearing that I'll oversleep, 

There being need that I engagement keep. 

Or when I'd make a train at — such o'clock, 

May not my ego at a portal knock. 

Or use some other means, the sluggish thing 

I call myself to consciousness to bring, 

No less than when, at present, it appears 

That danger to my being is, or nears. 

Or, in the rage of battle, comes the call — 

Drowned else — the stem command, that in I fall, 

Or that, again, an answer I attain 

To problem o'er which long I've wracked my brain? 

Across the decades, I am seeing come, 

One morning, with the answer to the '^sum,*' 

Which ev^ry mother's son of us had '' stumped," 

And all the arithmatic knowledge ^'lumped," 

Which in the old red school-house was to find, 

Among the scholars, with the Board combined, 

The teacher having left it to the rest. 

Because, he claimed, he thought it best. 

The dumbest of us, with a tale to tell, 

Which thus upon our eager hearing fell : 

*' When I waked up, at sunrise, in my bed, 

*'I had the answer!" And that's all he said. 

Less to be wondered at than that which broke 

Upon the sleeping president and woke 

Him, so completely, that he rose and sought 

The buzzer, which his secretary brought — 

A something, which, a moment, caused surcease 

Of differences, with a hope of peace; 

Or that, in waking from a slumber sound, 

The strangely-correlated poet found 

A poem in his mind, which freely ran 

As "Alph, the sacred river" — Kuhla Khan? 



16 MY EGO 

And now: Occuring in the days my best, 

When I was young, and when there was a West, 

Not only geographical, but yet 

Unfenced, with naught conventional to fret, 

When, on the reaches, all was native-wild, 

When man was brave, and simple as a child. 

Dependable, and with a love supreme, 

Or for the horse which bore him, or his team — 

A love which came to e'en the visitant 

To that vast, moundy, undulating slant. 

From where the Rockies stand enwrapped in snow, 

To where the Gulf's warm waters ebb and flow, 

On which, in calm of summer, sunbeams beat, 

With nothing mitigating to their heat, 

Excepting where the water-courses are. 

By uplands separated, sluggish, far, 

Their banks protected by the breaks profound. 

And rocky, in the ever thirsty ground. 

Or by morasses, which their waters make, 

Which through surrounding quicksands passage take. 

Which have protection given to the trees, 

From sweeping fires, throughout the centuries. 

The hottest day I 'd felt, the stillest known, 

I 'd driven, from the peep of dawn, alone. 

Barring that each of my spanned horses, fine. 

Was giving me his thought, receiving mine, 

Till, fully 'neath them, from the head to tail. 

Their shadows fell upon the burning trail. 

The time for nooning was arrived, I saw, 

And that, not far before us, was a draw. 

Descent to which I knew precipitate, 

That, by its stream, was welcome shade await, 

For which the walls, 'tween which it ran, the thanks. 

Together with the marshes of its banks. 

In language of the period — ''out there" — 

When I the ''ribbons" drew, I was aware 

That in my drawers' "throttles" there were "lumps;" 

Flanks heaving, they were threatened by the ' ' thumps, ' ' 

Naught was to do but for the afternoon 

To camp, and travel by the stars and moon — 



MY EGO 17 

The former ever near, with upward pull 

To thought, the latter, now, approaching full. 

How calm they were, and how on me she glowed, 

The night arrived, and we sometime aroad, 

Upon a wide plateau, which reached to where 

The Flint Hills Cairn of boulders rose in air! 

The span a jog, my throat from band released, 

How pleasant was a soft breeze from the east, 

An hour or so ! — Until a rumble shook 

The very earth! — Which my atttention took! — 

Over my shoulder. — From the west it came. — 

And what I saw sent shudders through my frame ! — 

Upon an upper-current heaved a stack 

Of clouds — as from Infernal Furnace, black — 

The fires replenished, and the draughts all free — 

That it might be as hot as heat may be ! 

I caught the horses' eyes-*— their heads turned, too — 

Their bodies, also, shaking, through and through! 

My impulse was: To anywhere, away! 

And theirs the same, most surely, one would say; 

For haunches sinking, with a frightened cough, 

They pulled themselves together, and were ofP, 

Along the trail, the sparks from ofP the flint. 

Their shoes were striking, in a stream, aglint! 

This suited me, until, receiving thought. 

That they'd expend themselves, my will was brought 

To slowing them, that they might, soberly, 

Attend to saving them, in saving me. 

When each had understood my voice, the rein. 

They were at one, in serving me again. 

The walk — the Western horse, he knew it not; 

The gait to which I brought them was the trot. 

No need that they should from me have behest, 

That, in their trotting, they should do their best — 

The while I pondered how to act, that we 

Should by the hurricane least injured be. 

The thing to do, unless we shelter make, 

Was that the wheels I from the wagon take. 

The horses fasten by the lariat. 

By wagon-body crouch — let go at that! 



18 MY EGO 

* * Beyond the cairn, there is a little dell, 

'*In which some poorly-shantied squatters dwell," 

Came, as a whisper, to my inner ear, 

**And, there protected, you'll have less to fear!" 

I chirped. The horses struck a faster pace — 

Half breaking — opening a dizzy race — 

Seeming — the splendid beasts! — ^to comprehend 

That not too soon their forces were to spend. 

I spoke. They entered on a swinging lope, 

Their ears apointed and their tails aslope. 

I shouted. And they to a gallop broke. 

Their feet upon the flashing flint astroke. 

I snapped the whip. Their bellies to the ground, 

Their nostrils wide, they answered to the so'und, 

With such a vigor, that they fairly flew 

The lights and shadows on the hard trail through — 

The clouds so near that heralds in advance 

Would cause to blink the moon — disturb her glance — 

With, now and then, a fragment of such mass 

Its shadow would for hoped-for valley pass. 

Till flicking fancy would corrected be 

By knowledge that the cairn was first to see. 

When it appeared, I could some comfort take, 

The storm appearing just about to break — 

The comfort only this: Within its lee. 

We would, not much, but somewhat, sheltered be. 

We soon were there, I down, a trace unhooked. 

When someone, who no hesitation brooked, 

Commanded a rebooking — a restart — 

Along the trail, to an awaiting part ! 

Adown an inclination steep — areel — 

Sometimes, apparently, upon one wheel — 

The horses tethered — I could do no more; 

And I was knocking at a shanty door. 

A long man soon appearing — ^vestment scant — 

Holding a smoky zero-lamp aslant — 

Saying: *'Our quarters are so very small, 

**We have no room for any more at all!" — 

I answering : * ' Or there will be a fight ' ' — 

Laughing — *'or I'll be sheltered here tonight!" — 



MY EGO 19 

''All right!'' — with hearty guffaw — then he said, 

And I was to a narrow lean-to led, 

In which a table, with some chairs, I spied ; 

A cooking-stove excepted, naught beside. 

Upon my arm a heavy robe I bore. 

Which, wearied to the core, upon the floor 

I threw, and fell upon. Too tired to think 

My inclination was to simply sink 

To resting — which I should have done straightway 

Had it not been, an elemental play 

Of unchained forces kept me waking, till 

A someone acted on my wavering will, 

As does the mother on the child's, to whom 

A spectre stalks about a darkened room. 

Then sank my brow within my hollowed arm, 

And sensing me protected from all harm, 

I sank, at once, to slumber, as complete 

As slumber may be — deep, refreshing sleep — 

Though flash and crash were ruffling the without, 

And thunderbolts were hissing all about. 

It seems, almost, I might be sleeping yet 

But for my host. For breakfast was to get. 

I soon was out. And stood, with open mouth, 

Seeing the storm we'd weathered passing south. 

The solid clouds were, as a curtain, drawn, 

To hide the splendor of the early dawn. 

Which bathed the here, from those behind their blue 

So inky, while across them zigzagged, through 

Them darted, and adown them came, arush, 

As wide as trees, as if a world to crush, 

The lightnings — all appearing, as it may, 

If God be angry, on the Judgment Day! 

Amazed, my muscles tense, my nerves astrain, 

With not-to-utter-tumult of the brain, 

How long I 'd not have noted nearer by. 

But for my host's approaching, no reply. 

' ' The cairn I ' ' the cry, as from the shanty ran 

The good-of -nature and phlegmatic man. 

There was enough of light to see its top, 

When I had brought my horses to a stop 



20 MY EGO 

Within the valley. Now I looked. And where 
It stood — was but a blank horizon there! 
We went to see. A thunderbolt had struck 
Its apex. And about there was but ruck! 

When well I 'd passed my noon of living, went 

The mother, with the Angel God had sent, 

Called Death — went peacefully, and with a smile, 

Conscious of the departed there the while — 

A smile to me, of deep solicitude. 

That I should suffer nothing hurtful, rude — 

I being still to her but ten years old — • 

My age when raging waves of discord rolled 

Athwart our land, and dear homes brought to earth, 

In an united Nation's gracious birth. 

And we were separated, save, at times. 

When I, from other customs, other climes, 

Would visit her — when she, throughout the day. 

Insistent was that I should with her stay — 

When she would come, at night, and tuck me in. 

And pat my cheek, and chuck me 'neath the chin, 

And kiss me, asking, with affection deep, 

If I had said my: ''Lay me down to sleep!"— 

When I to health again was on the way, 

I met the one who cared me when I lay 

In hospital; her look was not the same 

As when to take my temperature she came: 

Not being to her patient as before. 

Her nursely interest in me was o'er! — 

And when the years allowed my dog gone by, 

He 'd crawled away, to lying down to die ; 

When seemed my angel leaving me to weep, 

I failing open way for her to keep : 

My ego turned away, morosely sad; 

As, stubbornly, my wilful way I'd had; 

But could not go, for it is bound with me, 

For all of time and for eternity. 

The normal mother-care, through infancy, 
Ceases on coming of maturity; 



MY EGO 21 

The nurse's when my ailment is no more, 

And I 'm at duties, pleasures, as before ; 

And while my dog's so truly lost in me, 

That he is mine, whatever I may be ; 

And while my nature may be such, that, here, 

To me my angel never may be near ; 

My ego and myself together run, 

Or willingly or not — as two in one: 

So, while my mother's mem'ry I revere. 

And while my nurse to me is very dear. 

And while the one who wrongs my dog will meet 

The like from me, or have more rapid feet. 

And while my angel's finest and the best, 

My trust in ego, under God, shall rest, 

Eesponding to the Ego — Who to me 

Is calling, from the heights of Galilee! — 

In hope that, if I come to be His Guest, 

I '11 meet the ones I love — among the best, 

My dog; for — howsoever low my place, 

If granted only by a Special Grace, 

And near the portal of the Banquet Hall, 

Where I'll be scarcely seen, if seen at all, 

Excepting by the Host and those who cared 

For me the while I through the world-life fared — 

He'll stand a moment, as if asking help 

To comprehend, then—- with a sudden yelp, 

Rushing the intervenings over, by. 

As glad as if my placing were more high — 

Precipitate himself on me — the while 

The mother greets with disappointed smile, 

The nurse with one of kindly reprimand, 

The angel sadly looking a demand. 

Why I, apparently, had fixed my will, 

That she her services should not fulfill. 

While to my ego scarlet blushes come — 

In thinking of his all-but-failure, dumb! — 

Occurring when this transiency is o'er — 

After I 've sailed for the Eternal Shore : 

Of which I 've always had a memory. 

In faint and flickering uncertainty — • 



22 MY EGO 

After has burst that Shore upon my sight, 
Its bloom and verdure in supernal light, 
Its mighty reaches glowing, burnished-gold, 
With seams of silver, jewels manifold, 
Its prairies wide, its looming-mountains high, 
All forest-clothed, to pierce a sapphire-sky, 
"While in the middle-distance, dim and far, 
The walls and turrets of The City are. 
In which I know to be a Judgment Hall — 
After I, there, have heard the Sentence fall, 
On which depends if to the Blessed Feast 
I be admitted, e 'en to place the least : 
A sentence which could not but righteous be, 
Considering, in full, heredity. 
Environment, and whether they have shown 
Them faithful, who as guardians are known, 
Forgetting not, that in the transient state, 
Chiefly in my own hands was placed my fate- 
Contempt attaching if I weakly claim 
For my defects ancestors are to blame, 
Environment, or any one with share 
In giving what I have so needed, care, 
Or e'en advantage of th' Atonement take, 
Till ev'ry payment for myself I make, 
That's possible, for any wrong I've done, 
Or, worse, aside, allowed its course to run. 
In wandering the crooked paths I've trod. 
Impulsed by selfishness, away from God. 

With reverence, I think the endless line 

Through which has come the character that's mine; 

I'm thankful for the chances to me lent. 

By oft unutilized environment ; 

I beg the pardon of my guardians 

For dullness, stubbornness and elans; 

For opening the way to what may be 

For me, I bow to Him of Galilee ; 

Praying I may be strong enough to stand 

What's meted to me by the Father's Hand — 

Remembering there is a dignity — 

I being I — the property of me!— 



MY EGO 23 

To be increased by humble confidence 

In God, and in His agents' competence, 

In His Intent, as correlations tell. 

As eons lapse, with me it shall be well, 

In His subjecting His Infinitude, 

For my salvation, to the garden, rood — 

The agents sent, that they, by night and day, 

May watch me, sleeping, stumbling on the way, 

Through dimness winding, to the hither shore, 

To embarkation for the Evermore, 

Where parting from the temporal must be, 

With me my ego only booked for sea. 



Where Is My Dog? 

BY THE REV. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D.D. 

12mo. vol. 200 pages. Cloth bound. Price, $1.00 Postpaid. 

This book should be read by everyone. Its primary 
object is to call attention to the lower animals — out of 
which attention, kindliness of treatment of them is 
sure to come. No one who has the power of loving 
has ever attentively studied the lower animals and 
afterwards been unkind to them. 

There is heart in the whole work. Staring one in 
the face in every sentence of the book are two ques- 
tions : 1. Is Man Immortal? 2. Is the Lower Animal 
Immortal? These questions are handled in a remark- 
ably clean and philosophical manner, and Dr. Adams 
has certainly focused a flood of light upon them. 

Some Comments. 

"I really feel under deep obligations to you for your truti, 
forceful words in behalf of man's best friend, the dog." 

Eugene Field. 



"It may give you considerable standing among the angels, also, 
for I have always thought of them as interested, much like the 
children, in dogs. 

"But I observe that their reflections are all about 'Your Side* 
of things. Let me -say I enjoyed the book. It is well written, 
shows great observational faculty and good literary skill and 
taste." Allen H. Norcross, D.D. 

"Let me say, that, if your book is not already considered a 
classic in the literature pertaining to that most magnanimous of 
God's creatures, the dog, it ought speedily to take that rank, and 
I want to thank you most heartily for the pleasure that the 
reading of 'Where Is My Dog?' has afiforded me." 

Hiram Howard. 



'*It is fully in line with the best work of the writers on dumb 
animals and kindness to them, and it should take a place beside 
'Black Beauty* in the library of every home where there are 
domestic pets." Phebe A. Hanaforb. 

Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of Price, $1.00. 

J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
57 Rose Street, New YocIk, 



AWAKENINGS with 




BY THE REV. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D.D. 

A few of very many comments on Awakenings with 
In Athens, by the Rev. Charles Josiah Adams, D.D. 

From Bishop Winchester: "My dear Doctor Adams: It is 
exhilarating, and when you conclude with : 

" 'Kow many dimensions ? Seemingly four ! 

The fourth but an entrance to numberless more?' 
"the Christian imagination goes out into : 'Eye hath not seen, nor 
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things 
which God has prepared for them that love Him.' " 

From Richard Edwin Day : "I had not read many lines before 
I said : 'This is a deep man.' As I proceeded I was impressed 
more and more by the subtlety of the thought, the vigor of the 
style and the justice of the views touching the higher forms of 
animal consciousness. The bits of natural description are highly 
pleasing in their bold freshness." 

From John Vance Cheney : "My dear Doctor Adams : The 
subject is of great importance, and it is a pleasure to find one at- 
tacking it so vigorously." 

From Archdeacon Pott: "My dear Doctor Adams: A de- 
lightful tale thoughtfully told." 

From the Rev. Doctor Leach : "My dear Doctor Adams : You 
have a very unique freshness and insight which no others have." 

From the Rev. Edward Ernest Matthews : "My dear Doctor 
Adams : You certainly have combined with an unusual power of 
expression a certain mystical sympathy with the lower order of 
creation, especially in the interpretation of the feelings of the dog 
Joe — which is very rare." 

From Bishop Burch : "My dear Doctor Adams : Keep up the 
good work. Doctor. It will do you and all your readers good." 

From Archdeacon Nelson : "My dear Doctor Adams : Yours 
is the pen of a ready writer." 

Awakenings with In Athens is a booklet of 21 pages 
containing two poems referring to things of the Unseen. 

It will be sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price 
25 cents by the publishers. 

J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

S7 ROSE STREET NEW YORK 



HOPE UNDEFERRED 
AND TWO OTHER POEMS 

By 

The Rev. Charles Josiah Adams, D.D. 

Some comments, among many: 

From a young lady : "Doctor Adams : A young man called 
upon me. I showed him your Hope Undeferred. He was lost 
to me till he had read every word of it! Think of that! He's 
a Yale man — a mathematician. He believes, with you, in the 
Fourth Dimension of matter." 

From Bishop Greer: "My dear Doctor Adams: . . . 
You seem to have the gift!" 

From the Rev. Dr. George R. Van De Water: "My dear 
Doctor Adams: . . . Whatever be the elements which com- 
bine to produce the poet, they have found lodgment in your 
heart and brain. . . ." 

From Archdeacon George F. Nelson: "My dear Doctor 
Adams: . . . Pray accept my congratulations in view of 
your poetic fancy and power of expression. . . . Your 
gift is certainly a rare one. . . ." 

From the Rev. Stephen H. Granberry: "My dear Doctor 
Adams: . . . Their virility, exceptional range of poetic 
imagination, and an outgoing sympathy for all organic life, 
more particularly that of the dog, suggest themselves as 
characterizing the poems. . . ." 

From the Rev. Dr. Junius B. Remensnyder: "My dear 
Doctor Adams : . . . The poems are real poetry, with mar- 
velous aptitude in getting the right word, and in unbroken 
music of sound. The philosophy is profound, suggestive, and 
instructive. ..." 

Hope Undeferred is a booklet of 24 pages, attractively 
printed on high-grade book paper, and bound in blue cloth- 
of-gold paper cover. Price, sent by mail, postpaid, 25 cents. 

J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

57 ROSE STREET NEW YORK 



SOME OF THE MANY COMMENTS ON 

THIS AND THAT AND THAT AND THIS 

BY THE REV. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D.D. 

From Doctor Norcross: "It reminds me of a tapestry loom 
I saw in Granada, with its shuttle flying hither and thither. It 
is great, like the Granada tapestry, a delicate and refined sug- 
gestion of genius and art, with the Hght shining through." 

From James T. White: "Stately and agreeable." 

From Doctor Stires : "My dear Doctor Adams : You are 
much to be congratulated." 

From Bishop Leonard : "My dear Doctor Adams : Very 
clever and full of suggestion." 

From Doctor Mottet : "My dear Doctor Adams : I have 
read it with great interest." 

From Richard Edwin Day: "My dear Doctor Adams: Your 
view of correlation as a fundamental spiritual law is original." 

From Doctor Slattery : "My dear Doctor Adams : I have 
been struck by your rapid and condensed illustrations, especially 
on page 11." 

From Doctor Nelson : "My dear Doctor Adams : Like the 
title, it bears the seal of originality, and is a fresh proof that 
the poet's eye, 'in a fine frenzy rolling,' sees many things that 
the ordinary eye fails to see." 

From Doctor Van De Water : "My dear Doctor Adams : 
Between your fad of immortality for dogs and fleas, and your 
cocksuredness of four or five dimensions, I sort of see a glim- 
mering of truth, and so praise your effort." 

From Doctor Matthews : "My dear Doctor Adams : With 
your remarkable gift, you have again given us something very 
unusual." 

From Bishop Greer : "My dear Doctor Adams : You have in 
your make-up good sense, good judgment and good imagina- 
tion, and those are pretty fine qualities." 

From R. H. Davis : "My dear Doctor Adams : I have a 
sort of a feeling that somewhere tucked away in this poem is 
a great, erudite impulse and a sense of understanding that 
suggests something akin to prescience on the part of the author. 
Nevertheless, if anything appears to me nebulous and vague, I 
gently close the volume, offer a prayer for the saving of my 
soul, and stroll out !" 

From Bishop Burch : "My dear Doctor Adams : I was im- 
pressed by its fine, strong philosophies, as well as by its careful 
versification and phrasing." 

THIS AND THAT AND THAT AND THIS is a poem in 
booklet form, containing 17 pages, printed from new type on 
antique wove paper and attractively bound in paper cover. It 
will be mailed postpaid, upon receipt of Price, 25 cents. 

J, S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 57 Rose St., NEW YORK 



REPRIEVE AND OTHER POEMl 

BY CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS, D.D. 

Doctor Adams is widely known as a writer and lecturer, 
probably more so than as a clergyman. There is a reason for 
this. He is not conventional. When he has a thing to say — 
and there is no moment when he has not something to say — he 
says it as the occasion demands — his one thought being (as he 
says of his hero, Emory M. Em'berson, in his The Racing 
Parson; or, How Baldy Won the Country Seat) — "to get what 
he has in his mind to the mind of the hearer or reader." 

It has been said of Doctor Adams: "He thinks in pictures." 
That is a good way to put it. He expresses himself in pic- 
tures. 

That being the case, it is not matter for wonder that he is 
fond of putting things in measures. 

Each of his poems is a picture, or a succession of pictures. 
Take as an example the last poem of this collection: 

"To Miss 

Afterwards 
Mrs " 

Just after the sun had retired him to rest. 

To his gorgeously curtained couch in the wMi 

I saw, from some mysterious where, 

A star appear in the upper air; 

And the night-winds sighed, as, in lowered tone. 

They murmered sadly: "Alone — alone!" 

But they joyously laughed — clapped their hands in my face-* 

As another star came — took by him her place; 

And, together, they're reigning, and greater, by far. 

In union, than either could be as a star!" 

Gould the question be popped more distinctly? Every one 
of Doctor Adams' pictures conveys something, principal or 
subordinate. In the latter case, it fits in, playing its part in 
the making of the larger picture — ^as in Reprieve, The Matter- 
horn Head, To a Midwinter Fly, The Gray Charger, the . . i 
But get the collection and r .ad it! For the sake of the pic- 
tures. Not only. For Doctor Adams never gets far away 
from the idea for which he has sacrificed so much in the 
course of the decades; the idea which he has embodied in 
the word (which is his) Biophilism, the Love of Life, the 
largest expression of which he has given in his prose: 
Where Is My Dog; or. Is Man Alone Immortal? 

Reprieve and Other Poems is a book of 54 pages, size 
7% X 5, printed on antique wove book paper, from new large 
type and bound in stiff paper cover. It will be sent by mail, 
postpaid, on receipt of Price, 50 cents. 

J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

57 Rose Street, New York. 



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